Within the Legacy
by Mellia Bee
Summary: "You want these men?" Colonel Phillips was skeptical, but Steve was sure. What they didn't realize was that this would be the beginning of a legacy larger than them all. Regarding the day-to-day adventures inside the wartime camaraderie of Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter, Bucky Barnes, and the Howling Commandos. No slash.
1. The Best Men

**The Best Men**

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Colonel Phillips squinted at the names on the piece of paper in his hand. Then he directed the full force of his glare at the man standing on the other side of his desk.

Steve Rogers kept his eyes straight ahead, standing at attention.

"These men?" Phillips asked. " _These_ are the men you want on your team?"

"Yes, sir," said Rogers, still standing straight. His lapel pins were crooked - somebody needed to teach that boy how to dress.

Phillips looked back down at the names on the scrap of paper, and then back up at the newly-made captain in front of him. The army had decided it was easier to promote the young man to his apparent rank than to change the moniker half the free world knew him by.

"You had the choice of the entire army, the SSR, the SIS, the OSS," he pointed out. "Half the alphabet soup to choose from, and you pick this bunch?"

The kid's eyes never flickered. "With all due respect sir, I feel like they're the best men for the job. They've proved themselves in battle against Hydra, and they have the experience I don't."

Well at least Rogers didn't have a swelled head to go along with the rest of his suddenly larger body. Phillips looked back down at the paper.

He knew most of these men. He'd thumbed through their files, written some of the condolence letters to the folks back home when he'd thought them lost. Morita's folks were in a displacement camp in California. Dugan's next of kin was an aunt. Falsworth was some kind of English baron or lord or something, and Dernier was a widower, while Gabe came from a tight-knit family of eight.

A mismatched team of hoodlums, the lot of them.

"I notice you've got Barnes on his list." Phillips looked up again, stabbing a finger at the name as if Rogers couldn't read. "You know he's due to go home. All of them could go home, after what they've been through."

For the first time, Steve Rogers faltered. It was the slightest of movements, but the colonel caught it.

"I know," the captain said quietly. "They're a bunch of idiots. Sir."

He didn't say anything more, but the colonel's keen eyes could see more than the young man realized. Rogers wasn't the kind of guy to force anyone to do anything, so the only other explanation was that these men _wanted_ to stay.

They wanted to back this idealistic kid up, all risks notwithstanding.

Phillips slapped the paper down and scowled fearsomely. "I'll consider your input," he growled. "Now get out of my office. Go do something useful somewhere."

"Yes, sir," said Rogers, and started to turn before overbalancing and coming back. "Oh, and sir - I was wondering if we could request Agent Carter as our liaison. She's familiar with Project Insight, and - ah - knows Howard Stark."

The colonel leaned across the table, propped his chin on one fist, and watched steadily until the captain's ears began turning red. Then he asked, very deliberately, "You sure it isn't just because she's got a good figure and a pretty face?"

Rogers turned redder, but for a different reason.

"No sir," he said, iron in his voice, and his jaw angled a bit more stubbornly. "It's because she has faith in us."

Faith. Oh, for Pete's sake. There were _two_ of them.

"Faith, huh?" Phillips grunted, brandishing the list of names. "Much good faith'll do you, dealing with this bunch of yahoos you picked out."

The corner of the captain's mouth curved up a little, though he still looked very serious. "That's the other reason I want her," he informed the colonel. "Because I'm pretty sure she can handle these men and Stark with one hand tied behind her back."

Phillips studied the young man for another minute before leaning back in his chair, impressed though he refused to show it.

This wasn't the first time an officer had requested to have Agent Carter attached to their operation, but usually it had nothing to do with a recognition of her abilities and more to do with her - more picturesque assets. She'd broken the wrist of the last young sergeant she had an assignment with; he'd got far too fresh with her. Phillips had backed her the whole way at the time.

Now, looking at the honest, straightforward eyes of the man in front of his desk, he was pretty sure the incident would not be repeated.

Not that this man was blind - indeed, far from it. Phillips had seen the way Rogers looked at Agent Carter since the first day of training. He'd also seen the way Carter looked at Rogers - but between the two of them, they had a streak of stubbornness and loyalty wide enough to land a couple of B-17s on. Neither of them would take advantage of the situation.

"I'll think about it," he snapped, waving a pen pointedly toward the door. "Dismissed, soldier."

He wouldn't tell Rogers that his mind was already made up. Best to let the kid sweat it out for a couple days before he got the approved list.

Scowling thoughtfully, the colonel picked up the list of names again after Rogers had gone. This was either going to be the worst move of his life, or the most inspired. Either way, the fallout would be something to watch.

Shaking his head, Phillips tapped his pen against the table for a moment and then signed the dotted line at the bottom of the paper with a flourish.

Yes, this was going to be interesting.

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 **B-17s were bomber planes nicknamed "flying fortresses," used extensively during WWII.**

 **Okay, full disclosure: I had an awful lot of fun writing** _ **A Rare Camaraderie**_ **. And then that story ended - and the ideas just kept coming. And coming. I've got literally** **pages** **of ideas that I work on when my other stories are stuck; some just a line, some almost completely fleshed out.**

 **And then I thought some of you might want to read them.**

 **So - welcome! This is a random assortment of Captain America's adventures during WWII, complete with Peggy and Bucky and the Commandos and Colonel Phillips. Unless I say otherwise, they're set in the same universe as** _ **Camaraderie**_ **\- but unlike** _ **Camaraderie**_ **, this story doesn't have a set timeline. Which means I don't have to spend the whole thing working toward an inevitable ending. :)**

 **Welcome aboard!**


	2. Nisei

**Warning for use of 1940's era racial and cultural slurs/nicknames. I am aware this can be a sensitive point. If it bothers you, then please feel free to skip this chapter.**

 _ **Nisei**_

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"You sure you want me?"

A little surprised, Steve looked up - and then down. He still kept forgetting just how tall he sat these days, kept misjudging his sight lines. Jim Morita stood in the doorway. Usually the man had a confident, good-natured demeanor, but now he seemed to have shed it completely; shoulders squared, hands shoved deep into his pockets, head cocked belligerently.

Steve set down his book and straightened in his seat, kicking the other chair under the table so it scooted back invitingly. "You're gonna have to be more specific than that," he said, trying to read the other man even though he already had a sneaking suspicion what was wrong.

Morita took a few steps forward, but didn't take the offered seat. Instead he gestured, indicating his face, his body. "Look at me, Cap."

Steve obligingly looked. "New shoes?"

Morita blinked and then snorted briefly, but the attempt at humor didn't seem to lighten him up. Instead, he bounced lightly on his toes. "Not my shoes, Cap. At _me_."

Pretty sure now that he knew where this was going, Steve leaned back. "You're looking all right," he said, refusing to take the bait. "They feeding you enough?"

The shorter man slapped his hands down on the table, patience spent. "Why do you want me?" he demanded, voice low and clipped. "Look at me, I'm a Jap, a Nip. Nobody trusts a face like mine."

"I do."

Steve's voice was so positive that it visibly threw the other man for a moment. The captain had been wondering if this would come up. Morita had agreed to join his team without hesitation, but since that night in the pub there had been quite a bit of backlash from some of the brass about Steve's choice of men. Apparently Morita had caught wind of it.

"I trust you," Steve repeated earnestly, "and so do the others."

"The other guys." Morita's words suddenly took on an edge. "So that's what it is. You got a Mick, a Froggie, a darkey, a Limey, and all you need is a Nipper to fill out the set - is that why you want me?"

"No." Steve's jaw tightened and his chair scraped against the floor as he leaned forward. "I've got a _sharpshooter_ ," he emphasized, "a weapons expert, a strategist, a translator, a demolitions man - and correct me if I'm wrong, but you're an American and the best comms man in the 100th."

Morita stared, and Steve realized this was probably the first time that someone in the army had valued his experience over his appearance. Then the shorter man let out a brisk breath, something like carefully veiled curiosity in his words. "So you don't care I look like a bad guy?"

Steve didn't answer right away. Instead he stretched out his leg and kicked the other chair a little more until Morita took the hint and sat down. They faced each other across the table for a moment, and then Steve sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"Look at me," he said, watching Morita steadily. "Blond hair, blue eyes. You want someone who looks like a bad guy? I couldn't look more Aryan if I tried, but that doesn't make me some kind of German bully. People may judge you from the outside, but it's what's inside that counts. You were one of the first men to pick up a weapon, defend the other soldiers, get them out of that Hydra camp. You're quick, and you don't let people push you around, and that's the kind of person I want on my team."

"I could be a spy." Morita's face was sharp, watchful, mouth twisting as he repeated the ugly words he'd probably overheard a thousand times. "Secretly loyal to the emperor. You'd never know until I betrayed you all."

"You aren't," Steve dismissed the suggestion instantly. "You've come too far and fought too hard. I toured through the west - I saw the camps."

He had done a show at one of them. He had been surprised, conflicted as the cars drove them from the station to the camp. Miles of chain link stretched out, barbed wire around long buildings in the middle of nowhere. Men and women and children, most of them American citizens, tried to live normal lives despite the heartbreaking circumstances and the anger and suspicion that surrounded them.

The kids had loved the show. Their parents had hung back, withdrawn, guarded, hurt. Steve hadn't known how to help, how to fix things, so he'd shaken the hand of every kid in the audience, taken pictures with most of them, and given them all the chewing gum he'd had with him.

He still wished he could have done more.

Morita looked down for a long minute, and when he looked up again his eyes were liquid, belligerent defenses draining away.

"My family had a nice house before they moved them to a camp," he said wistfully, heartache and bitterness mingled in his words. "Old racecourse - they live in the stalls. It still smells like manure, no matter how hard my mother cleans. My cousin in the National Guard had to give up his weapons, got demoted to a cook." He swallowed hard, tracing absent designs on the wood of the table, focusing on his fingers. "He wept when they made him hand over his gun."

There was nothing to say, so Steve didn't even try. The way he saw it, the men who wanted to defend their country were better Americans than their superiors who gave the suspicion-based order to strip them of their arms.

"I guess I'm just impressed you're still fighting on our side after all that," he pointed out after a while.

Morita shook his head and blinked quickly, stubbornly squaring his shoulders.

"They can call me a Jap," he answered resolutely, iron-edged. "They can call me a Nip, or a traitor, or a yellow-bellied snake - but I'm not any of those. I'm an American, same as they are, and I will fight to defend my country with the rest of them."

Steve nodded decidedly. His chair scraped again as he shoved it back and stood, extending his open hand across the table, trying with all his might to show in his face how serious he was. "That's why I want you on my team," he explained. "That's why _we_ want you on our team. You still in?"

Morita didn't move for a very long time, looking up at him with unreadable eyes. Then, just as Steve began to think he never would, he rose and accepted the offered hand in a firm handshake.

"I'm in," he answered, head held a fraction higher than before, shoulders looser. "I - thanks for taking a chance on me."

Steve grinned, and let the tension of their conversation dissipate. "I think it's actually the other way around," he admitted, faintly sheepish. "I may have punched Hitler, but I've yet to see actual combat - at least, combat I was authorized to join. I'll take all the help I can get."

Morita stepped back, bouncing on his toes again, and looked the captain up and down. The sparkle was back in his eyes, his habitual good humor restored. "Oh, I guess we can probably make some kind of soldier out of you, Cap."

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If Morita still harbored any lingering doubts over whether or not he was accepted into the tight-knit band of men, all his unspoken questions were answered a few days later when Dugan punched two soldiers from another unit for making loud and crude rhymes about Cap and his Jap.

"Nobody talks that way about my pals," the larger man growled, mustache bristling fiercely. Falsworth nodded in pleasant agreement, looking down his nose at the uncouth bullies sprawled on the ground, and Jones slung an arm around Morita's shoulders.

Steve grinned into his glass and discreetly looked the other way, to all appearances unaware of the scuffle taking place only a few yards from his seat. His men had the situation well in hand, and he didn't want to step in just yet. Later he would need to reprimand Dugan for rowdy behavior unbecoming a soldier, but he already knew that the disciplinary speech would be delivered without heat and received unrepentantly - and he couldn't care less.

Because even as Morita made a joke and brushed the whole matter off with his usual pointed humor, Steve had seen the touched, astonished gratification in his eyes - and he knew that the man would never again wonder whether or not he was a member of the team.

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 **I agonized a lot about posting this one. It refers to a side of WWII in America that we're not very proud of.**

 **The idea for this chapter was born when my great-uncle told me about his father who had witnessed the Japanese-American members of his National Guard division as they were ordered to disarm. He was disappointed with his supervisors for making that order - and right then I knew I had to write this. The story Morita tells about the men weeping as they gave up their weapons and Steve's thoughts about it were both taken from that conversation.**

 **To be honest, out of all the nationalities and races Cap has on his team, it's most astonishing that he includes a Japanese-American - indeed, it's amazing that Morita was out there to be picked at all. Most of the Japanese-American soldiers already in the army were disarmed, transferred to inland American units, and demoted to lower tasks that wouldn't require weapons handling.** **By the time Steve Rogers picked his men, (I'm guessing late 1943), only one battalion of Japanese-American soldiers had been sent overseas: the 100th. It was more of a hard won test of loyalty than anything else, composed of Japanese-Americans from Hawaii, who didn't face quite the same stigma as the ones in mainland America.**

 **Morita was from Fresno, California. His family would almost certainly have been put in an internment camp, and he would have faced deep turmoil and suspicion from both his fellow Japanese-Americans and the military officers on his decision to both join and stay in the army. However, those early Japanese-Americans who managed to fight** **proved their worth - not by words, but through their actions - and their example opened the way for more acceptance later in the war effort. To this day, the Japanese-American units of WWII remain the most decorated American units of all time, receiving honors from both America and France.**

 **Jap/Nip/Nipper = Japanese citizen or person of Japanese descent. Shortened form of Japan. Shortened form of** _ **Nippon**_ **, the Japanese word for Japan. Derogatory terms, most commonly used during WWII.**

 _ **Nisei**_ **= second generation American of Japanese descent. Combined from the Japanese words** _ **ni**_ **(two) and** _ **sei**_ **(generation). Not a derogatory term.**

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 **ChildofGod and A Guest and Fan: Thanks! I'm glad you're both excited for this. I know I am! _Camaraderie_ was mostly focused on Steve, Peggy and Bucky, so I'm looking forward to exploring some of the other Howling Commandos in this one. Don't worry - there will still be plenty of my favorite trio.**

 **LaughyTaffy: Yum, yum! I love candy. :) Thanks for dropping me a review! I smiled so hard that my friends started giving me weird looks. You're amazing - have a really good day!**


	3. Perilous Pancakes

**Perilous Pancakes**

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Whoever said the French could cook had evidently never met Dernier. Steve froze, and then carefully took the first bite back out of his mouth. Bucky was less discreet.

"Ugh, what'd you do to the pancakes, man - put sand in them or something? How do you mess up a pancake, anyway?"

Dernier shrugged and said something in French, but Jones was too busy gagging to translate. He was an early riser and had already eaten three of the pancakes in question. Now he was looking visibly ghastly. Peggy stepped forward and squatted next to him, offering a helpful thump on the back before turning a suspicious eye on the bag of flour in Dernier's pack.

Steve took a second look at his plate, and carefully pulled the beautiful, tenderly browned pancake apart. There was an odd, gritty texture to it that had initially arrested his attention, and he could faintly detect something off about the flavor, though it looked and smelled wonderful.

Peggy asked Dernier something in French and he shrugged eloquently, answering her in the same language. Steve was beginning to pick up a little, but not enough to completely figure out what they were saying. Still, he was pretty sure the word "Stark" was in there somewhere.

Rising to her feet, Peggy crossed the camp and sat next to Steve, studying his plate thoughtfully.

"Maybe don't eat those," she carefully suggested after a moment.

He threw her a questioning glance, but her poker face was good enough that he couldn't always read it.

Hungry as they were, nobody ended up eating more than a few bites. Dernier didn't seem to be hurt by it, merrily wrapping the leftovers in a piece of oilcloth and stowing them in his pack before they moved out. Jones was still wobbly-kneed, and they had to pause several times for him to throw up.

"I don't think I'll ever eat Jacques' cooking again," Bucky admitted, looking a little queasy himself.

Steve thought about Howard Stark and the bag of suspicious flour, and shrugged a little. "Maybe something was spoiled," he suggested, and left it at that.

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The compound was heavily built and well-guarded. They'd taken out the first layer of guards under cover of darkness, but time was moving quickly and the silver rim along the edge of the skyline was growing fast. Soon the moon would rise, and the element of surprise would be lost.

Stripping off his gauntlets with his teeth, Steve knelt against the wall, feeling along the ground for the edge of the door. Dernier was right beside him, yanking explosives and fuses out of his pack.

"Found it," Steve breathed, barely making a sound in the stillness of the night. He kept one hand on the nearly invisible line that marked the door's position, holding out the other for some kind of explosive. Instead, his fingers curled around something flat and vaguely spongy.

Confused, Steve lifted it closer to his face and then shook his head, trying to hand it back. Dernier wouldn't take it, already busily working on his side of the door, whispering something back in vehemently hushed French.

Steve didn't catch a word of it.

"You gave me a pancake," he tried to explain, and then squinted through the dark to discover that the presumed explosives that Dernier was setting were also pancakes from the doomed batch. Caught severely off guard at the unexpected proceedings, Steve blinked hard - but when he looked again, the pancakes were still there. Perhaps he was seeing things.

"What's the holdup?" Bucky demanded, coming up behind them and then stopping short. Steve twisted, and couldn't help grinning a little at the stunned expression on his friend's face at the sight of light, fluffy pancakes fitted with fuses and set as if they were explosives.

Then again, maybe it wasn't good that they were both seeing the same thing. Sure, it was nice to know he wasn't going out of his mind, but it also meant that their volatile explosives expert had just gone nuts and was about to attempt blowing a hole in a Hydra stronghold with breakfast food.

"We're trying to blow the door up, not give it a sick stomach," Bucky hissed, shooting Steve a look of sheer incredulity as if this madness was all his idea. The captain spread his hands helplessly. Why on earth did Bucky always think the craziest things were his fault?

Dernier shook his head with frustration, muttering something under his breath that sounded like " _un imbécile stupide"_ as he snatched the last pancake out of Steve's hand and fixed it with a fuse. Then he got to his feet, stooping and scuttling backwards toward cover as he shook a fine trail of white powder out of the flour bag.

" _Allez!_ _dépêchez-vous!_ " he whispered urgently, waving an arm. Neither of the Brooklyn boys needed to know French to understand his meaning; when Dernier acted like that, it meant something was going to explode in short order.

Even if he expected to work a miracle with pancakes and fuses and flour.

"Wait, this is really some kind of joke, right?" Bucky demanded as they reached the shelter of the trees, throwing himself to the ground more out of habit than actual caution. Dum Dum immediately perked up, always interested in a good joke - and then he caught sight of Dernier who had shaken the last of the flour out of the bag and was fumbling for a match.

"Hey, Frenchie," Dugan reached out, dabbing a finger into the flour on the ground. "You're wasting the grub."

Dernier smiled - an eerie flash of white teeth. " _Attends, tu vas voir_ ," he grinned, and struck a match with a flourish. For just one moment they could see his face in the warm glow, intent, eager, body shielding the light from enemy eyes. Then he touched the flame to the flour.

The flour burned.

It didn't burn like any flour Steve had ever seen before. The flame nipped across the ground, following the trail Dernier had laid, sparking brightly through the stones until it vanished in the darkness, out of sight.

Then there was a long stretch of dark silence, broken only by their collective heartbeats.

Nobody breathed. Dernier was so confident that somehow Steve almost caught himself believing that the weird pancake setup might actually work - which was patently ridiculous.

Bucky shifted impatiently and started to say something.

The next instant, a blast of light and heat and sound hit them, expanding outward in an explosion that sent the heavy doors flying. Dernier was up on his heels, clapping his hands and shouting in delight, but Steve could barely hear him through the ringing in his ears.

Bucky's mouth hung open - and not just as a precaution to keep his eardrums from bursting. "Son of a gun," he gasped, and Steve found himself nodding in stunned disbelief. Then gunfire split the air from the alerted guards, and it was time to move.

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"What was in those pancakes?"

It was hours later. The stronghold had been defeated, prisoners taken, and the sun was finally beginning to come up. Bucky picked his way through the rubble of the door towards Steve, eyebrows furrowed.

"I dunno," Steve answered, turning over a chunk of masonry with his toe. "Pretty sure it wasn't regular flour, though." He'd need to talk to Stark later about this, make sure the man hadn't enthusiastically sabotaged any of their other supplies.

"Exploding pancakes." Bucky shook his head in amazement. "And here I thought I'd seen everything." Then he sobered. "We probably shouldn't let him cook any more. I'd hate to see what he could do with some beans or a couple of potatoes."

Steve nodded - he had been thinking the same thing, at least until he could get his hands on Stark and ask Peggy to interpret Dernier's side of the story. "You know none of the rest of us are any great shakes at cooking," he pointed out, just for the sake of an argument. "If nothing else, at least Dernier's grub looked good."

Bucky snorted. "Your food might not be real pretty, but I usually don't worry I'll blow up after eating it."

Feigning indignation at the slight to his cooking artistry, Steve swung an arm at his friend. Bucky ducked without even looking, and then whirled to catch him in a headlock. By the time Peggy found them, they were both red-faced and laughing boyishly, each trying to trip the other up onto the stony ground.

It took three solid weeks of burned beans, cold K-rations, and loud Gallic protests before any of them let Dernier near their food supplies again.

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 **And this is where you say, "...what?"**

 **Hee hee. Ahem. :)**

 **Okay, let's be clear. I actually did** **not** **make this up, though I did fudge a little with the technicalities of laying explosives.**

 **The direct precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). During WWII, the OSS was ordered to come up with unexpected ways to trick or attack the enemy. One of the unusual weapons the OSS made was an explosive made to look like flour that could be baked into beautiful, if slightly gritty, baked goods. The only drawback - it made people very sick if they ate it. The flour, dough, and baked product were all equally explosive. Easy to transport and hide in plain sight, it was used primarily on the Pacific war front. Doubt me? Go to the CIA official webpage and search for "Aunt Jemima" - the explosive's code name. It's there, along with a bunch of other interesting gadgets.**

 **You cannot convince me that Howard Stark and Dernier did not immediately bond over their love of blowing things up, and that Stark did not give a bag of their new explosive to the unconventional French expert for testing.**

 **That is all.**

 _ **Allez!**_ _ **dépêchez-vous! =**_ **Come on, hurry up!**

 _ **Attends, tu vas voir**_ **= Wait and see**

 _ **Tu es un imbécile stupide**_ **= You are a stupid imbecile**

 **Thanks a million to blobfish3690 and KoolKat189 for their help with French translation! They are amazing!**

 **Shoutout - If you like the idea of Howard Stark in conjunction with baking, look up "The Mother of Invention" by Sholio on AO3. It is probably my single most favorite Howard fanfic. :)**

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 **ChildofGod: Yes, Steve isn't the only one in his group who had to fight just to get in the army. I'd imagine each man on his team had their own story that got them that far.**

 **LaughyTaffy: Oh my - ice cream! You've found my Achilles heel. (Collapses dramatically with joy)**


	4. Pencils

**Pencils**

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Steve played with pencils.

He didn't necessarily mean to; it just seemed to happen. If there was a pencil or pen within reach, chances were good that he was either doodling or fiddling with it.

Which was fine - even though it didn't exactly go along with the image of Captain America the War Office was trying to promote - only he also tended to drop the pencils he played with, and that could be a problem. Smack dab in the middle of a tense meeting or a serious moment, Steve's pencil would whirl out of his fingers or rattle across the table and he'd either have to sheepishly scramble after it or simply pretend not to notice that he'd just lost his writing implement - again.

It got worse when Peggy was around.

They all noticed it. Whenever Agent Carter walked into the briefing room, Steve's pencil was at least three times more likely to fly away from him than at any other time. The whole thing kept him in a perpetual state of embarrassment, but the Commandos thought it was hysterically funny.

Nobody ever asked Peggy what she thought about it. They didn't need to - the half-exasperated, half-amused quirk to her lips every time Steve dropped his pencil around her was enough to make her opinion quite clear.

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"Captain?" Peggy asked, turning away from the map on the wall after Steve's pencil clattered to the floor for the fourth time in thirty seconds.

He had been bending to pick it up, but sat bolt upright in his seat at her voice, desperately trying to project an air of innocence. "Agent?"

Peggy pursed her lips severely, though her dimples were struggling to show through. They could all distinctly hear the rogue pencil rolling further and further beneath the table, the only sound in the room until it ran into a jutting board and stopped short.

Steve's ears were scarlet. Bucky's forehead was puckered into a fearful scowl and he looked to be deeply interested in the material he was studying, most of his face safely hidden behind his hand.

Never mind that the paper was upside down and written entirely in Polish.

"We're discussing the logistics of the air drop," Peggy reminded them both severely. Her voice was as crisp and businesslike as ever, but there was a quirk to her mouth that suggested she was on the very edge of laughter. "Captain, I'm going to need you to discuss this with your men, ensure they've all undergone the requisite training."

Steve nodded seriously, dutifully attentive. Beside him, Bucky skillfully palmed his own pencil and then got his friend's attention by the simple expedient of jabbing the sharpened end into the captain's knee under the cover of the table. Steve flinched visibly, smothered a yelp, and shot Bucky a dirty look that almost instantly changed into one of gratitude as he recognized the offer for what it was.

"I'll talk to them," he promised Peggy, and slipped the pencil out of Bucky's hand so he could jot down a note to that effect.

He must have used too much force in his haste to sweep his previous awkwardness under the rug though - because then, of course, the borrowed pencil broke.

It didn't simply crack in his hand - it snapped clean in two, leaving a dark smudge of graphite across the paper. One half flipped up to hit him smartly in the face, but the other half was sent skittering across the tabletop, slipping just past his desperately reaching fingertips to rest directly in front of Peggy Carter. Her eyebrows flew up to her hairline in surprise.

Steve froze and looked up guiltily, arm still outstretched from his vain attempt to intercept the pencil end.

For a very long moment, nobody spoke.

Then Bucky cracked. His shoulders trembled violently until with a strangled chortle he leaned back in his chair and laughed until he cried.

"Buck," Steve protested, red-faced, torn between his mortified desire to sink into the earth and the equally pressing need to collar his infectiously laughing friend. Across the table, Colonel Phillips snorted loudly before hastily pinching the bridge of his nose in his hand, unsuccessfully trying to cover his own chuckles with a series of progressively unconvincing coughs.

Peggy set down her clipboard and regarded the broken pencil end in front of her with as much gravity as she could muster, though her dimples had long since won the battle. Then she picked it up, stepped decidedly around the table and stopped in front of the suddenly wide-eyed captain, holding it out.

"Yours, I believe," she informed him with great solemnity.

Bucky howled weakly, slapping his knee - and despite Steve's flushed embarrassment and stammered apology as he meekly accepted the broken end, the captain couldn't quite bring himself to regret the whole debacle.

He hadn't seen Bucky laugh like that since Brooklyn.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

 **Because if you watch Steve just after he marks the Hydra bases on the map for Peggy in the first movie, he's talking with her and** _ **playing with his pencil**_ **. And then if you're watching the deleted scene, you'll see him very carefully and intentionally lay it down on the table before following her.**

 **He's not going to risk dropping that thing one more time.**

 **Hi, people. I am beyond remorseful that it's been so long. It's not for lack of trying - every minute has been spent either doing something incredibly important that will directly affect the next 2-5 years of my professional and educational life, or trying to complete the myriad of other, equally demanding things I've agreed to do. And every time I sit down to proof a chapter (which is almost daily), I wake up later with my face smashed into whatever piece of furniture I'm sitting on and sleep-written jargon on my screen.**

 **So - here is this at last, and a** _ **Cradle**_ **update will follow as soon as I can get Natasha to behave sufficiently.**

 **Thanks for being so patient and supportive and wonderful!**

* * *

 **ChildofGod: Ha, ha! I'm so glad the exploding pancakes worked for you. It was one of those truly unusual pieces of information that I stumbled across and thought, "I have _got_ to write this" - followed quickly by "but nobody will ever take me seriously again if I do." :)**

 **A Guest and Fan: Thank you! I'm really glad you liked both chapters. I was a little worried about posting each of them - for different reasons, but it's nice to know they both worked.**

 **LaughyTaffy: Oh dear, you spoil me. :) Now that's the kind of pancakes I really like. Yum, yum!**


	5. Recitative

**Recitative**

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"Buck."

Bucky opened his eyes and discovered to his mild surprise that his nose was about an inch away from landing in his plate of beans. Blinking scratchy eyes, he sat up and looked across the table at his friend. "Whazzup?" he slurred - and wow, he had not meant to sound quite that bleary.

Steve was looking at him closely. "When'd you last sleep?"

Exhaustion dragged at the muscles of Bucky's face, tugging at his eyelids, trying to pull them closed again, but he sat a little straighter and did his best impression of the happy-go-lucky guy he'd been before joining this world of war and blood and nighttime terrors that left him sweating and panting. "Last night, same as you."

From the look on Steve's face, Bucky knew he'd overshot 'happy-go-lucky' and ended up somewhere in the realm of 'weirdly smiling while grumpy,' but the captain didn't press the issue. Instead, he reached across the table and poked Bucky's plate with his spoon.

"Eat up then, before Dugan steals it all."

Slapping the spoon away, Bucky curled an arm protectively around his dinner and hunched over it. Through a haze of weariness he managed to get food on his fork, into his mouth, and down his throat. The process took more thought than it should have, and twice he jabbed himself in the nose by accident as his head fell forward involuntarily before jerking upright.

Boy, he hoped he could sleep tonight. This was really getting old.

The tines of his fork scraped across the plate with a screech that jolted him out of his daze enough to realize that the plate was empty. When he looked up, nobody else at the long table appeared to notice that he'd been industriously trying to eat long after his food was gone. Even Steve was focused intently on his own meal.

Bucky eyed him thoughtfully for a minute, trying to decide if his friend was really that interested in a plateful of lukewarm slop or was just trying to spare his feelings. The problem was too hard to think about, and with a shake of his head, Bucky abandoned the idea.

"'M gonna turn in," he managed - or at least he was pretty sure that was what he said - and stood.

He handled the crowded room well, all things considered, only running into people twice and bouncing off the corner of a table. That last would leave a nasty bruise, but at the moment the most important thing was sleep.

The slap of fresh, cool air in the face as he left the mess hall was almost as good as a bucket of water over his head, and Bucky took deep breaths, shaking himself like a dog.

This was silly. Lack of sleep shouldn't affect him like this. Then again, neither should the memory of his time in the camp after Azzano. The memories kept creeping back though, raking through his mind until sleep was a worse horror than being awake.

Bucky scrubbed at his eyes and reached for the door handle. One thing was for certain; he would sleep tonight.

Probably.

The long barracks was mostly empty when he entered. Only one or two guys had gone to bed early, and there were a couple down at the far end playing a game of cards. Ordinarily Bucky would have gone down to join them - he was a pretty good poker player and some extra cash always came in handy - but not tonight.

Steve's cot was closer than his own, and Bucky crashed onto it at full length, eyes already shut. His own cot was barely three feet away, but at the moment it seemed like a mile. Stevie wouldn't mind…

The pillow smelled like Brooklyn. Bucky buried his face a little deeper into it and let his tired body relax at last, mind slipping peacefully away.

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He didn't remember waking up.

What Bucky _did_ remember was a hot whirl of steam, needles, leather biting into his wrists as he struggled, crying out in helpless agony and hating himself for it even as he screamed. Despair flooded his senses, thick panic closing his throat, crawling up his insides, curdling heavy in his gut.

With a choking gasp, Bucky bolted upright, swaying drunkenly as his tired mind struggled to comprehend the fact that he was not, in fact, back in that chamber of horrors beneath the little smiling doctor's hands. Breathing thickly, jaggedly, he stared wild-eyed at the quiet barracks, the rows of mostly empty beds.

Somebody laughed over the low murmur of conversation at the far end of the room. The card game was still going.

He'd been asleep for all of two or three minutes, ten at the most.

Overwhelmed, Bucky dropped his head into his hands. Something bitter rose in his throat - bile or a sob, he wasn't sure which - but he forced it back with a shaky gulp. In his chest, his heart knocked away at his ribs, and weary, scalding tears stung his eyes.

How was he supposed to work past all this when he couldn't even go to sleep at night?

In that moment, Bucky would have given anything in heaven or earth to be home again, to be able to lay his aching head in his mother's lap and let her smooth his hair. She had soothed away all his childhood nightmares - surely she would know how to help him now.

The cot suddenly dipped, and a shoulder brushed his.

"Hey," said Steve mildly.

Of course he'd followed him. Bucky tried to steady himself, failed, and scrubbed his palms into his eyes, hoping to hide any evidence of tears. Men didn't cry, no matter how hopelessly tired and lonely they were.

"M'okay. Just tired," he said at last, even though Steve hadn't asked him. He kept his head in his hands, hoping that his plea of exhaustion would give him an excuse to go on hiding his face and explain away the hoarse shake in his voice. Grey weariness tugged at the corners of his vision, but it was filled with flickering terror that he refused to face again if he didn't need to.

Steve made an understanding sound. "Hope I'm not bothering you," he said after a minute, even though this was his cot. "I just figured I'd read a little before bed."

Bucky swallowed, swiped his hands down his face, and started to stand up. "Yeah, sure. Sorry - I'll clear out…"

"No," said Steve. "I mean - maybe I could read to you? You know, like old times."

Old times. Bucky knew exactly which 'old times' Steve meant. Back when when they were kids and Steve was too feverish to read or draw or talk coherently, Bucky would hunker down on the foot of Steve's bed and read him the latest ragged comic book out loud. He wasn't the best reader, stumbling over the long words and rushing the easy ones together in exuberant haste, but Steve always listened, flushed and hollow-eyed and drifting, simply glad to have his friend with him.

He aimed a suspicious, bloodshot eye at Steve. "You trying to read me to sleep or something?"

Steve looked startled and a little guilty, with a deeper, genuine concern written across his face. "Maybe?"

The fact that Steve - _Steve_ \- was trying to be sneaky around Bucky of all people was actually a little hilarious. Bucky huffed a mirthless half-laugh and shook his head. "Okay," he said. His eyes felt like a pint of sand had been dumped into them, but he blinked them open resolutely. If nothing else, maybe this could keep him awake. "You can read, but I'm not gonna fall asleep."

The cot shifted as Steve got up to rummage through his footlocker. Bucky seized the opportunity to wipe his face on his sleeve and catch his breath, looking up at the ceiling. Then he bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood, hoping the pain would wake him up.

"Here we go," said Steve, sitting down again with a book in his hands. He said something else - probably asking if Bucky cared whether they started in the middle where the bookmark was or went back to the beginning - but the question didn't register and rather than ask for it to be repeated, Bucky merely shrugged.

He didn't care, just as long as it kept him awake.

Steve's voice was low when he began to read, the vibrations rumbling through his shoulder where it touched Bucky's. Bucky could have sworn that he was paying attention, but if anybody had asked him, he honestly couldn't have told what book Steve was reading. It could have been the Bible or a book of doggerel poetry for all he knew. Whatever it was, though, it was certainly peaceful.

Slowly, Bucky felt the sick knot in his stomach begin to unravel; his heart rate and breathing started to calm. Paper whispered as Steve turned the page, continuing to read. Bucky's head bobbed and then jerked up, startled. _No._ He was not about to fall asleep.

Steve paused at the movement, turning a little to look over at him. Bucky realized his eyes had somehow closed, so he hauled them as wide open as they would go, though he couldn't force them to focus. "What're you stopping for?" he tried to ask, although it came out sounding more like, "Whashtopp'nfr?"

"Nothing," said Steve, with something suspiciously like a smile in his voice, and went back to reading.

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The long drawn-out sound of a barracks full of soldiers snoring grated straight through Bucky's head and he groaned, pawing futilely at his ears as he blearily pulled himself upright. Blinking, he looked around the dark room - and then stopped short with surprise as he realized whose bunk he was in. Man, he must've been out of it last night, to sleep in Steve's…

Wait.

Frowning, Bucky dragged his irresistibly closing eyes a little wider to get a better look. What he'd thought was a pillow was instead Steve's leg.

Steve's feet were on the ground, but he was laying on his back across his own narrow cot as well as Dugan's, which had been dragged up against his at some point so the captain could lie back without disturbing Bucky. Dugan himself was sleeping in Bucky's deserted bed, vociferously adding his voice to the chorus of snores.

It all came back to him then, in bits and pieces, rendered vague by his lingering sleepiness. He hadn't been able to sleep, so Steve had come in and read - something or other - and apparently at some point, Bucky had fallen fast asleep with his face mashed into his friend's knee, where he'd evidently been drooling for at least half the night.

Fool kid, to sit up all night just because Bucky couldn't sleep.

Something strangely warm grew around Bucky's heart, and he swallowed hard, scrubbing at his face with one tired hand. Then - because he was still so sleepy, and it was still dark outside, and he was surrounded by good friends who cared - Bucky closed his eyes and lay back down beside his best friend, balling up a corner of the blanket to make a slightly less bony pillow.

Somehow he didn't believe the nightmares would come back tonight. And if they did - well, then Steve would be there to read him to sleep again.

Nestling a little deeper into the blanket, Bucky slept, smiling.

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 **This is not at all affected by my own bad sleep habits. Or by my ability to recite my sibling to sleep with every inch of poetry I know. :) Of course not…**

 **I know it's been a while, and I appreciate that you're still reading more than I can say. Have a great week, y'all!**

* * *

 **quaintandcuriouspuppet: Thanks again!**

 **LaughyTaffy: Um - well, I like chocolate and caramel and butterscotch and peppermint. And those watermelon candies with the chewy centers. Thanks for all your fun reviews! You're as sweet as your candy. :)**

 **ChildofGod: Wrote this chapter and then looked at your last review and laughed at myself for a while. :) As for the pencil fiddling - ooh, I'll have to try that out. Oh - and that old prompt of yours? Still working on it. But it's coming, truly. It's just getting a little longer than I expected.**


	6. Leg Up

**Leg Up**

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"I found it!"

Bucky's shout brought the rest of the Commandos running. They'd been scouring the deserted Hydra base with increasing desperation for the last twenty minutes. It wasn't one of the huge warehouses like the others they'd taken down - this one was deep underground, directly beneath a small village.

They'd thought the mission had been successful. All the Hydra operatives had been flushed out, although few prisoners had been taken. It was hard to physically keep a man from biting down on a cyanide pill - Agent Carter had nearly got her fingers bitten off, trying.

Then Dernier had approached the captain, waving a fistful of diagrams, completely incoherent in his distress. It had taken both Gabe Jones and Montgomery Falsworth to puzzle out what he was trying to say, but when they did, Gabe turned a ghastly face toward the captain.

"They got the place rigged," he explained, gesturing to the papers Dernier was wildly brandishing. "And somebody pushed the button when we got here. We got maybe a half hour before it goes off."

Steve's mouth went dry. "How big?" he asked, though something in his gut told him he wouldn't like the answer.

It was Monty who answered. "Large enough," he said grimly. "We need to start evacuating the civilians."

Colonel Phillips and the rest of the small force they'd been working with had stayed on the surface, trying to evacuate the residents while the Commandos tore through the base, overturning tables and chairs, sweeping maps off the walls, hunting feverishly for the explosives.

"Explosives'll be in a bunch of places," Jones explained, translating Dernier's rapid-fire French even as they turned the guardroom inside out, "but there'll be some kind of timer, some kind of initial detonator. If we can get to that, Jacques can disarm the whole thing."

They almost hadn't found it. Time was getting perilously short, and Steve had been at the point of ordering them to clear the area, when Bucky's cry brought them all running towards the back of the base.

He was at a door, holding it open with his foot when they arrived. "Up there," he nodded, pointing upwards with his chin. "Please tell me that's what we're looking for."

"Please tell me somebody can fly," Dugan echoed, looking up. They seemed to be in some sort of narrow chimney that led to the surface, hundreds of feet above their heads. A charge planted here would not only take out the subterranean base, but would also sweep upward and cause even more damage to the tiny village above.

Well above their heads, a small niche was cut into the side of the shaft, and every man present could easily see the blink of a red light, slowly counting down. Steve aimed a calculating eye at it before taking two quick steps in the small space and jumping. For the briefest of moments, his eyes were on a level with the box - but there was nothing on the smooth wall for him to get a handhold on, and he slipped back to the floor, landing on his feet.

"That's it, all right," he nodded to Dernier. "Looks just like the diagram in those papers. We got about six minutes left on the timer."

Dernier gestured hopelessly, looking up at the tiny niche, so far out of his reach. Steve turned, mouth opening to ask his men to find a ladder, but Morita forestalled him.

"I haven't seen one anywhere," he pointed out. "Maybe we could carry a desk out here, turn it on end?"

Steve shook his head, face tight as he looked up at the blinking light. "Won't be tall enough." He turned, dropping into a crouch, back against the wall, and held out his hands. "Here, Dernier. I'll lift you. You should be able to reach - just keep your knees straight."

Jones began to translate, but it was apparent that Dernier had understood the captain's meaning, if not the actual words. Swallowing hard, the little man nodded and stepped forward.

Two precious minutes later, it became painfully apparent that this wasn't going to work. When it came to handling explosives or counting down time, Dernier had the steadiest nerves in the business. But standing on another man's hands and being lifted into the air was another matter entirely.

"Stand straight," Dugan helpfully bellowed, going on the theory that volume would make up for his lack of French. "Don't touch the wall, man - just stand straight. He won't drop you."

Gabe slapped at him. "Shuddup. Dernier, _tu veux m'écouter, oui?_ "

Dernier wasn't listening to either of them. He was sweating bullets, knees wobbling all over the place as he looked earnestly up at the blinking timer, still out of reach.

Beneath him, Steve was struggling. He had lifted experienced showgirls with ease, hefted inanimate equipment without a thought, but this was new to Dernier. The soles of the little man's muddy boots were planted securely in his palms, but every time Steve tried to lift the Frenchman higher than his shoulders, Dernier's knees began to liquify and he spasmodically reached out for the wall, throwing off the balance of the lift. Twice, Steve had very nearly dropped his friend, which only made things worse.

"This isn't gonna work," he admitted at last, lowering Dernier's feet to the floor and wincing at the iron grasp the man had on his hair. "Get everyone out. I'll jump up, try to pull it out of the wall."

Dernier paled further, shaking his head. " _Non, non_ , I can do, can do. Once more," he insisted. His spirit was admirable, but time was ticking. Steve wavered, tipping his head back to look up at the small device.

Behind him, he heard bodies shifting, and then a sigh.

"Right," said Agent Carter. "I think you'd better let me try. _Excusez-moi, mon ami_."

Steve turned. Peggy Carter stepped toward him. Dernier huffed a relieved breath and shucked off his jacket, offering it to her. She slipped it on, hands patting the pockets for a moment, feeling for the tools the Frenchman always carried with him. Then she turned to face the captain.

"Well?" she asked.

He swallowed. There was no time for hesitation. If all this went wrong, it would blow up in her face. "Okay," he started. "Hands on my shoulders, then stand as I lift. Arms out to the sides for balance."

Peggy nodded, all business as she laid both hands on his shoulders. The touch of her palms tingled straight through the thick material of his uniform. Lifting one foot, she settled it into his hand and shifted her weight onto it preparatory to lifting her other foot.

Then she paused. "Oh, and Captain?"

He looked up at her, briefly arrested by the dancing sparkle in her eyes. She never looked so alive as when she was in danger.

"Yes?" he managed, acutely aware of the steadily decreasing timer.

"Eyes front," she ordered sternly - and that was when he realized she wasn't in her combat gear. He gulped, looking down at the mud-stained skirt of her WAC uniform, and then nodded resolutely.

"Got it," he replied.

She went up easily, arms held lightly out to her sides, already intent on the job at hand. Steve lifted her feet as high as his chest, paused to adjust his grip, and then hoisted her higher until his arms were straight.

"You see it?" he asked, and felt her nod straight through the soles of her shoes.

"I see it," she called back down. "Just a little closer, if you will."

Steve edged closer to the wall, but it was hard to gauge the distance without looking up, so he bit the bullet and threw his head and shoulders well back, raising his eyes and fixing them on her face, careful not to let his gaze wander incautiously. His mother had raised him better than that.

Peggy said something else then, but it was in French. From what he could catch, it seemed to be a running commentary as she worked, directed at Dernier who stood by nodding sagely and calling up the occasional comment of his own. Once, Peggy dropped a small wrench and narrowly missed clocking the captain between the eyes. Dugan tossed it back up with a right good will, and Steve just hung on to her feet and focused on keeping her steady. He thought about ordering the fellows out, just in case it went off after all, but there didn't seem to be much point. They were deep inside the base, and by this time even the fastest runner wouldn't be able to clear of the blast range out in time.

There were thirty seconds left on Steve's internal timer when something else fell - a tangle of seemingly innocuous wires. They clipped the captain's shoulder on the way down, and then he saw her intent face smooth, relax. She dusted off her hands and threw a proud little smile down at her companions.

"Well, that's that," she announced with deep satisfaction. The tension in the narrow room evaporated immediately. Dernier whipped off his hat and chucked it in the air with a high-pitched whoop, and the rest of the Commandos followed suit with a boisterous howl, in keeping with their name.

Amid the celebratory hubbub, the captain stepped sideways, bringing Peggy down and catching her neatly. It was automatic - he'd done it with so many showgirls that he didn't even think to warn her until she was in his arms, face suddenly close to his, dark eyes wide with surprise as she clutched reflexively at his shoulders.

He had held showgirls this way before - but this was somehow very different.

They stared at each other for a moment. Then Steve hurriedly set her on her feet and stepped back, apologizing awkwardly for startling her with the unexpected drop. He knew his ears were scarlet - he could feel it.

"Not at all, Captain," she assured him, seeming just a little uncharacteristically flustered despite her assurances. "You're - you make an excellent stepladder."

It was probably an opening to say something witty, but nothing occurred to him, so Steve just nodded and looked at her bright, beautiful eyes and slightly flushed cheeks. "You're not bad with explosives either," he finally managed, honestly.

Peggy took the compliment with a smile, before brushing herself off and surrendering her borrowed jacket to Dernier. Her cheeks remained a trifle more rosy than usual, but she seemed as composed as ever as she followed the rest of the Commandos out of the cramped little chimney and back into the base.

Steve, on the other hand, took three days before he could get the feeling of holding Peggy in his arms out of his head - and Bucky teased him incessantly the entire time.

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 **Well, there you have it, folks. Excuse any errors - it's been so long that I figured I owed you a little something regardless. The French is my best effort, which means it's probably not good at all, so if any of you actually** _ **speak**_ **the language, I'd honestly welcome correction. Thanks!**

 _ **Tu veux m'écouter, oui?:**_ **Will you listen to me, yes?**

 _ **Excusez-moi, mon ami:**_ **Excuse me, my friend.**

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 **Guest: Glad this made you smile. :)**

 **ChildofGod: There's something about really good brother relationships that just absolutely melts my heart. And I know your review was left forever ago, but I'm super glad the last chapter gave you warm fuzzies! Also, your repeat pancake review - well, that just made me laugh. You gotta wonder what the actual soldiers thought when they were issued exploding flour.**

 **LaughyTaffy: I have (figuratively) lived off that load of candy, and thank you for it very much. :) Thanks!**

 **A Guest and Fan: Thank you! And yes, Clumsy Steve just makes my day somehow. Perhaps it's because I've been known to scatter writing utensils as well.**


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